


If it troubles you to breathe

by Teatrolley



Category: SKAM (Norway)
Genre: Character Study, Coming Out, Gen, Lesbian Vilde Lien Hellerud, Vilde + the girls friendship, it’s just vilde and friends, mentions of eating disorders and problems surrounding sex, this doesn’t have a romantic relationship plot despite the tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-07 02:28:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14661447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teatrolley/pseuds/Teatrolley
Summary: It's hard to come out. Especially when you have a boyfriend and you're not too sure you really want to be a lesbian anywayOr: Vilde's journey towards coming out, through her relationship with food, sex, Magnus and the girls





	If it troubles you to breathe

**Author's Note:**

> hi!! very long time no see. this is just a small little thing i wrote on a whim a long time ago and then didn't do anything with before i, on another whim, wrote some other stuff on it just now, and made it this, bc i’ve always been fascinated by vilde as a character and wanted to explore some of her troubles and stuff
> 
> beware that vilde tries to have straight sex in this, although she knows she's not really into it (and that it's a little bit detailed about those sex scenes in a very non-sexy way) and also that there are some mentions about her and noora's eating disorders and about some self-punishment. basically, vilde has a tough life and you should be sure you're up for reading that
> 
> on that happy note, enjoy!

“I don’t think it’s working,” she says.

She gets off Magnus’s lap from where she was trying to– Well, to get him _inside_ of her, and then she gets onto the mattress instead, on her back, face in her palms but only after she’s covered herself, and she just doesn’t understand. She’s asked Eva and Eva says it’s important not to be tense, which she isn’t, and to be wet, which she _is_ , but it’s just not _working._

“It’s okay,” Magnus says, and: “Hey. Vilde. It’s okay.”

He’s kind. He’s so fucking kind, lying there with his hair falling into his forehead and a gentle, loving, expression on his face, and she wants to do this, if not for her then at least for him, and it’s just not working.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“It’s _okay_. Hey.” Magnus reaches out, finds her hand and squeezes it before he brings it to his lips, kissing the back of it. “You’re so worked up about it. And granted I don’t know a lot about all of this, but I’m pretty sure it’s meant to be fun.”

“Yeah.”

“And you don’t seem like you think this is fun.”

A whimpering sort of sound is punched out of her, and she hides her face in her hands again.

“Hey,” he says, fruitlessly, because she’s too upset to react. “Okay. Alright.”

Pulling her into him he rubs her back a little, up and down her spine in a soothing sort of pattern that’s meant to make her feel less stressed and does, too, at least a little.

“It’s okay, baby.”

So it won’t be tonight, either, and as she realises that the tension bleeds out of her a little bit and the breath comes back in.

It won’t last forever, of course. Tomorrow or sometime this week someone will say something about sex and she will start worrying that she’s not having it and she’ll keep worrying until she’s worried herself into enough of a frenzy that she’ll practically beg Magnus to try again and then it won’t work and then they’ll be back here, just like last time.

“Some couples just don’t have sex,” Magnus goes on, and if she wasn’t crying before, just a little bit, she does now. Because she wants to have sex, she really does, but whenever he touches her she doesn’t really like it, and whenever she touches him she doesn’t really like it, and whenever they try to get him inside of her it _doesn’t fucking work_. “We could be like that.”

“No.”

“But it’s hurting you.”

“No.” She shakes her head, again. “I want to.”

“Okay,” he says, then sighs as he keeps rubbing her back, and that makes her feel bad, too, that he doesn’t say it like he’s excited but like sex is exhausting for him too, now, and that he says it like he’s placating her. “But not tonight. Okay?”

“Okay,” she says, and there it is again, that last punch of relief. “Fine. Not tonight.”

*

He sleeps over, and the next day he goes grocery shopping with her, something she’s been in charge of for ages, enough so that she has a list and a budget that she’s trying to stay within. The state gives them money, but not a lot.

Later they go to the pharmacy, too, to pick up her mother’s medication, and she’s grateful for the companionship that he’s brought into her life.

She’s never shared this with anyone before, her mother’s illness or the fact that she’s, in many ways, the one who’s the parent, but it’s so nice to share it with him. It’s a relief, and a weight off her shoulders, because it’s really hard to do it alone.

Everything is harder alone, actually, but in many parts of her life, still, that is what she is.

He holds her hand while they walk through the stores, and kisses her when they wait in line, and she gets on her toes, puts her palm to his neck, and brings them close enough to kiss him back.

She does love him. She does love to be affectionate with him.

They have these moments of clarity sometimes, like the one that’s happening right now, where that becomes obvious. It never happens around other people, because there she’s too busy pretending, and it never happens around sex either, but sometimes he squeezes her close, almost like a friend would, and she has a moment of feeling it again.

He’s so sweet, that’s the thing. He’s so un-judging, and so full of love, and such a mountain of happy energy, but at the same time he’s experienced enough of life’s rough parts to understand her and to know how to be a good friend.

He’s a great person. He definitely deserves much better than her, because he definitely deserves to be loved right, but she won’t let him go. It’s too nice to have someone on her side for once.

“Do you want to come over to eat tonight?” he asks, while he’s helping her unload the groceries, too, because that’s the kind of person he is. “You could sleep over. I think we’re doing a Disney marathon.”

By _we_ he means him and his two younger sisters, and the first time she learned he was a big brother she was exactly the opposite of surprised. He’s a caretaker, after all. Of course he’s the oldest of the flock.

“Yeah,” she says, although she should probably stay to care for her mum. He smiles. “Absolutely.”

“Awesome.” He kisses her, too, but a few little pecks more than something that’s sensual. “They’ll love it.”

“Hm.”

“And I love you.”

He’s flirting, and he’s sweet, and he means it, Vilde can tell that he does. He shows it to her every day.

Instead of replying, she hugs him. When she does he kisses her temple and rubs her back, squeezing her close like he understands that she needs to be held.

It kind of makes her want to cry.

*

A few days later, she’s hanging out at kollektivet with Noora and the girls, and she loves them, she loves them, but sometimes it’s so exhausting to try as hard as she’s trying to hide herself away, and still have some of them look right through her.

They’re talking about sex.

They’re often talking about sex, of course, but tonight it’s not really sex with another person.

“But it needs to be one of those that you can turn so the stream is direct,” Chris says, making everyone erupt into giggles. “My grandma has one.”

“Your _grandma_.” It’s Eva. “You’re never there without her. How can you even do it while she’s around?”

“Oh, whatever,” Chris says. “She probably does it, too.”

Everyone laughs again, and it shakes Vilde, who’s lying with her feet in Sana’s lap, and her head in Eva’s.

“I can’t do it,” Noora says, from where she’s sitting next to Chris on the other couch. “We have the right shower-head, but whenever I try I just think about how Eskild’s probably used it to prepare himself for sex.”

“Why on earth would you think about that?” Sana asks.

“Well, he tells me every time.” They laugh. “Before and after.” 

“I would, too, to be honest.”

“Chris!” Eva shakes her head in her direction, and Chris shrugs.

“What?” she says. “It’s true.”

Eva shakes her head again, hands coming down to run through Vilde’s hair, absentminded, and Vilde’s heart moves to her throat, where it stays the whole time.

“I can’t do it,” Eva says. “We only have a tub.”

“You can do it in a tub,” Chris says, and Eva giggles.

“Okay. Guess I’ll have to try again.”

“Mm. What about you, Vilde?” 

Now Vilde’s heart is beating too fast. Chris is really only trying to include her, but Vilde kind of wishes she hadn’t said anything. That she could have sat this one out, in peace.

She shrugs.

“I don’t need it,” she says. “I have Magnus, remember?”

“Yeah, but, Vilde.” It’s Noora, tilting her head like Vilde just said something stupid, and now Vilde’s heart isn’t in her throat, but in the bottom of her stomach. “Just because you have a man, doesn’t mean you have to stop doing it on your own.”

“Do you know that you sound like you’re leading a feminist march a lot?” Chris asks, and Noora rolls her eyes at her, but does it with a smile, like she can see it, too. “What’s the next bit? Women must take charge of their own sexual liberation?”

“They must.”

While Chris sighs, Sana shakes her head, and Eva stops touching Vilde’s hair for a moment.

“Guys,” she says. “I’m starving. Were we going to get pizza, or what?”

“Yes!” Chris snaps her fingers, excited. “Sana, what was the name of that halal place we tried last time?”

“Donia?”

“Oh, yeah. Okay, I’ll look it up. We can return to the subject of Noora’s feminism again later, if Noora feels so inclined.”

“I won’t,” Noora says.

“Sure.” 

They all move on that quickly, but Vilde is stuck on it. Vilde is always stuck.

*

That Friday everyone goes to this party event that the school is hosting, and Vilde ends up sitting next to Magnus, with his arm around her, while he talks to his friends.

Vilde, instead of joining in, are watching Isak and Even, who are there with them but in the corner, clearly off in their own world, as they seem to only have eyes for each other.

Actually, Isak is practically sitting in Even’s lap, arm around his shoulder as he touches Even’s hair with his other hand. Even has one arm around Isak’s waist, and the other on his thigh, where it runs up and down, sensual and sexual without being too inappropriate for being in public.

Casual. That’s what it is, she thinks, as Isak smiles at something Even said, before he leans in, slowly, and kisses him in a soft way. They’re in love, clearly, and into each other, but it looks so damn casual. So easy and free.

While they kiss, Even’s thigh slips under Isak’s, meaning that Isak is now actually almost in his lap, and then Even’s hands move to Isak’s hair, and then they’re making out.

Vilde looks away.

There’s someone who it’s easy for her to kiss like that, and it’s not Magnus. It’s someone with brown hair, long now again, and someone who only ever does it when there’s alcohol on her breath, and it’s a girl. It’s a girl.

She hates herself a little for it, the way she has a boyfriend and Eva has Jonas, but that she still ends up gravitating around Eva that night, once they’ve both had a few beers to drink, hoping, hoping, hoping that maybe Eva will kiss her again.

Eva does kiss her, while they and all of the girls are dancing on the dance-floor, and for a moment, there, under the strobe lights, Vilde feels at peace.

Then Eva pulls away, giggling, and turns around herself to glance around the room, and Vilde only realises after she’s gone that it was Jonas she was looking for. She only realises, when she watches Eva finding him, sitting herself in his lap and leaning in to kiss him.

It hurts.

It shouldn’t, but it does. She can’t help that it does.

When she looks around, her eyes catch on Magnus, who’s sitting right next to them, and when their eyes meet he nods his head upwards in question. _Are you okay?_ Always that. _Are you okay?_

She nods. She can’t not nod.

When she gets home, she doesn’t eat.

*

It didn’t start out like that.

It started out as a desire to look pretty, or at least that’s what she told herself. She wanted to be appealing to William, she said. She wanted to look like all of the girls in the magazines. She wanted to be perfect.

She still does, but she’s finding that she can’t pretend that it’s just looks any more. Because it’s not just looks.

It’s punishment.

It hurts in her stomach, and she likes it. It makes her feel weak, and she likes it, and what she really wants is to wither away until she no longer exists and until no one is looking at her, because she’s scared all the time and she’s tired.

There’s this mould of the person she should be. Clever and pretty and happy and popular and straight. She doesn’t know when it started or why, except maybe it’s just that she’s scared of ending up unhappy or like her mum, and the mould promises to help her do that. Maybe it’s that she’s never really liked herself, and she doesn’t know how to start.

On Wednesday Noora brings her lunch, pasta with chicken and feta cheese, which means that she’s not being as subtle as she thinks she’s being. On Saturday Noora cooks dinner for her.

She thinks some of them know. Chris seems worried sometimes, and Noora seems to know that no one is cooking for Vilde at home. Sana knows that the wine parties are a lie. She thinks she’s because worse and worse at keeping her secrets hidden.

They sit at Noora’s bedroom floor, picking at their food long enough to eat it.

“Vilde,” Noora says, that hesitating tone she sometimes uses before she says something that she’s been thinking about a lot. The same one that she used when they talked about William, but now William is gone and Noora is looking at her instead, intent like she’s trying to figure her out. “Will you ever tell us what’s wrong?”

It’s scary, being known. It’s scary when you’re trying to hide it.

She can’t even say that nothing is wrong. She can’t manage to lie, although her throat closes up in panic at the idea of anyone actually ever finding out.

She shrugs. Noora tilts her head.

“It helped me to talk,” she says.

She’s right. She’s right, but talking means revealing, and Vilde just isn’t ready for that yet.

“I’m fine,” she says. They both know it’s a lie. 

*

It’s Magnus who gets the idea to try with lube.

He’s been researching, apparently, which makes her feel guilty, because it’s her fault that he has to sit around googling how to make sex something that’s actually nice, and something that can actually, fucking work, instead of something that’s distressing to them both. She’s guilty.

It works.

He makes a sound when it does, low like it’s coming from him stomach, something between a moan and a groan, and then he chuckles, looking away, like maybe he’s shy.

“You feel good,” he says, blushing, and despite everything she loves him, so she reaches up, fingers through his hair, and kisses him. He moves.

It’s not great. It’s not bad, either, it’s just happening, and she can tolerate it, or at least she thinks she can. How long can it take him to finish? From what she’s heard from the other girls, and what she did with William, not too long.

So she settles in, arms around his neck, and finds a spot on the ceiling to look at.

He pauses.

“Tell me what to do,” he says, kissing her, open-mouthed and wet, before his hand moves to in-between her legs, thumb pressing down like he’s researched this, too.

It feels good, for a second, and makes her want to push his hand away. She takes it, instead, intertwining it with her own.

“Just move,” she says, but he frowns.

“Villy,” he says. “Come on. You can’t let me be bad in bed.”

“I’m not really in the mood.”

He breathes, once, twice, and then he nods.

“Okay,” he says, and begins pulling away. “Another time.”

She stops him, legs tightening around his waist.

“We don’t have to stop,” he says. “Just let’s do you. I’ll just lie here while you finish.”

“You just–” He tilts his head like she’s crazy, like she just said something crazy, and that makes her feel worse than he’s ever made her feel before. He shakes his head. “No.”

“What?” she says.

“No,” he repeats. “I’ve let you keep making me try all this time, and I’ve been a coward and selfish because I knew you didn’t like it but I allowed you to pretend.”

He wants too much, she thinks. He wants her to do things with him, and he wants to make her come, and he wants to have actual, good sex with her, but she can’t. She can just about stand the thought of lying back while he moves into her, five minutes or so and then it’s done. Then she can say that it’s done.

“I think we should stop,” he says. “The whole thing. I don’t think we should try to have sex anymore.”

“Why?”

“ _Why?_ ” He says that like she’s being crazy, too. “It’s not good, Vilde. None of us think it’s good.”

“But we have to.”

He shakes his head, meeting her eyes and looking sad, and when he reaches down to run his fingers through her hair, she wants, desperately, to cry. She wants to break down, sobbing, because this can’t be true, they can’t stop trying, because she can’t be what she actually is, she can’t, it’s too hard.

She doesn’t want to be different, and she doesn’t want to be an outsider, and she doesn’t want to be sad. She just wants to be a normal teenage girl. But she can’t.

“No,” Magnus says. “We don’t have to do anything.”

“But–”

“I said no,” he says. “You have to respect that I don’t want to. It’s out of your hands.”

The relief. It’s so overpowering, coursing through her like a wind.

She cries.

She doesn’t mean to, and she hates that she does, but one moment he’s pulling out and lying next to her, and the next she’s crying softly, quietly, tears streaming down her cheeks to her ears and the pillow because she’s so relieved, but she shouldn’t be, she shouldn’t.

He hugs her, and then she’s sobbing.

“It’s okay,” he says, soothing patterns across her naked back, and her nails digging into his because she’s trying not to make any noise and because she’s trying not to let him go, to make him stay, because if he leaves she’ll be alone. “I wish I could help you.”

Her sob, coming out on a hiccough.

“Vilde,” he says. “I’m on your side. Whatever it is just tell me, and I’ll be on your side.”

“You’re a boy,” she says, because she can’t say it the other way around, the _you’re not a girl_ way, but it still feels like weight lifting as much as it feels like her heart breaking. He keeps caressing her back. “You’re a boy.”

He nods.

“I understand.”

“You don’t.”

Instead of saying anything he moves back, finds her gaze, and finds her cheeks to rub his thumb across them. Smiles at her, small and warm and full of all the love she knows he feels and is treating like this, cruelly like this, and then he leans in, slowly, and kisses her. Just her forehead.

“Maybe not,” he says, then. “Maybe I don’t. But I’m here.” Still here. “Okay?”

He takes her hands in his, squeezes them.

“I’m here.”

*

It’s amazing how much it feels like a weight has been lifted. It’s been pressing down on her chest this whole time, weighing and weighing and weighing her down, and it’s not like it’s off now, but there’s so much relief in being able to say it to just one person.

They break up without telling anyone, and nothing changes. She’s still sitting at his table at the cafeteria, and he’s still holding her hands, and sometimes he calls her baby to keep up the ruse, but there’s no kissing and no sex.

He shows her movies and points out the women he thinks are hot. Sometimes she agrees.

It’s not completely straight-forward. The first time after they’ve broken up that someone talks about sex her throat closes up in panic again, because she’s starting to acknowledge that it’s not boys that she wants, and for a week or so the eating gets so bad that Noora brings her lunch every day. And then on Saturday, cooks her dinner again.

“Something new is happening,” she says, while she’s watching Vilde eat, and Vilde doesn’t mean to start crying, but these last few weeks she’s been crying a lot, silently and streaming down her cheeks. Impossible to stop, like it’s catching up on all the crying she’s kept inside herself while things were at their very worst.

“I’m gay,” she says, full of sobs, and Noora just comes over to hug her.

“Okay,” she says.

More relief. Sobbing into the hug, Vilde realises that the only one with a problem about her being gay is herself. It’s not that that makes it easier, all the things she thinks she has to let go of, or any less scary, but at least it means that, no matter what, she’s not going to loose her friends.

The next person she comes out to is Chris, and this time it’s deliberate. Chris is the one she’s known the longest, and the one who’s been frowning the most, paying attention and asking questions and wanting to be there, so Vilde wants to let her, now.

She’s looking at her hands as she says it, so she doesn’t realise that Chris is going to hug her before she is. After, when they pull apart, they’re both crying, and Vilde is not surprised about herself, but she’s a little surprised about Chris.

“Thank you,” Chris says, and they both laugh, teary and snotty but earnest.

“Thank you?” Vilde asks.

“I’ve been worrying so much.”

That makes Vilde smile.

“You’re a good friend, Chris,” she says, and laughs again when Chris hugs her even closer once more.

She tells the rest of them that same afternoon, while they all meet up in the park together, lying on a blanket and soaking up the sun, off in their own worlds, until, quietly, she says those two words out loud.

“I’m gay.”

She feels less casual than she makes herself out to be, but it’s nice to pretend for a moment that it’s all as easy as that. Uncomplicated and casual, like she’s talking about the bird that’s chirping in a tree nearby them and not about the thing that’s been so hard to figure out.

After, Eva pulls her aside.

“The kisses,” she says, sounding apologetic instead of judging, and Vilde is so relieved by that, that all she does is shrug. “I didn’t know.”

“Me neither,” Vilde says, and Eva shrugs back, so Vilde turns brave enough to add something else. “At first.”

To her surprise, but like she hoped, Eva laughs, slapping Vilde’s chest with the back of her hand.

“Down girl,” she says, and Vilde can’t believe that it’s that easy, but it’s that easy.

There are still things she should figure out, and she should probably go back to the school nurse to talk about her problems with food, but for a brief moment, right then, she feels like it’s a little bit easy. Like she’s finally able to breathe.

Finally, then, she laughs back.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, i love it when you tell me nice things in the comments, so i'd love it if you did that


End file.
